24 CHARLES DARWIN 



bauds and fingers with a fine sense of touch, as in man- 

 kind. In others it has acquired claws or talons, as in 

 tigers and eagles. In others, toes with an intervening 

 web or membrane, as in seals and geese. In others it 

 has acquired cloven hoofs, as in cows and swine ; and 

 whole hoofs in others, as in the horse : while in the 

 bird kind this original living filament has put forth 

 wings instead of arms or legs, and feathers instead of 

 hair.' This is a very crude form of evolutionism indeed, 

 but it is leading up by gradual stages to the finished 

 and all-sided philosophy of physical life, which at last 

 definitely formulates itself through the mouth of 

 Charles Darwin. We shall see hereafter wherein 

 Erasmus Darwin's conception of development chiefly 

 failed in attributing evolution for the most part to the 

 exertions and endeavours of the animal itself, rather 

 than to inevitable survival of the fittest among innu- 

 merable spontaneous variations but we must at least 

 conclude our glimpse of his pregnant and suggestive 

 work by quoting its great fundamental apergu : ' As 

 the earth and ocean were probably peopled with vege- 

 table productions long before the existence of animals, 

 and many families of these animals long before other 

 families of them, shall we conjecture that one and the 

 same kind of living filament is and has been the cause 

 of all organic life ? ' 



A few lines from the ' Temple of Nature,' one of 

 Erasmus Darwin's poetic rhapsodies, containing his fully 

 matured views on the origin of living creatures, may 

 be worth reproduction in further elucidation of his 

 philosophical position : 



